Horror story flashing m1115 to it

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
S

squidman

Member
Jul 8, 2017
92
4
8
53
I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but thought I'd share my (BAD BAD BAD!!) experience.

Went to flash m1115 to it mode for first time, after a lot of stuffing around finally found a full efi shell and was able to boot into said shell from usb (everything but m1115 and OS drive disconnected). Well it couldn't find the lsi card, despite the m1115 showing up fine in post. So various iterations later trying to flash via efi shell (didn't even bother going the dos route), used a rather large collection of files posted over in notebook forums? (after having tried both p20 and p17 official firmware, rom and efi sas2flashers).

Well as soon as I booted from that collection of files, exited after still a no-go, absolutely no post whatsover. Not even the debug lcd on my mobo (asrock ep2c612 ws). So, sigh, unplug all 10 hdd's, graphics card, sound card, m1115, hba, etc, then disassemble the entire thing..still not even getting into post.

Now my mobo WAS getting a bit flaky, and am desperately hoping a couple of ebay bios chips will solve the problem (and a bios chip flasher for good measure!). But I can't help wondering whether my stupid mobo decided to flash and corrupt it's own lsi controllers, or even it's own bios of it's own volition (man I swear, it never did start flashing anything while I was there in efi shell!). Thank god I have until mid-july on my warranty..for once it doesn't expire a few days after catastrophe strikes!

Has this happened to anyone else?

Sys specs:
ASRock Rack ep2c612 ws
2x e5-2696 v3 sr1xk oem pulls
psu ax1200
64gb kingston ddr4 ecc rdimm (the eye-wateringly expensive stuff!)
500gb ssd for os
2x 250gb ssd in raid 0 for scratch
8x4tb nas hdd in storage spaces mirror 1
3x3tb hdd for working disks

DAS to serverraid via sff cables
asus headless mobo no cpu or memory-just for pcie power
IBM sas expander
7xmisc 2 and 3 tb hdd's
 
S

squidman

Member
Jul 8, 2017
92
4
8
53
50+ cmos reset, even including taking out battery now for 24 hours (yes tested with multimeter, reads fine at 3.11 v dc), thinking it's a board thing, or that that huge usb software package somehow flashed several bios on the mobo. Have to look it up, but the mobo prbly has an lsi chip in there, so stupid usb may have flashed the lsi bios instead of the m1115..or maybe it even flashed the damn bios chip! Frankly don't know, as can't even get to post now.

Then again, this board seemed a little damaged when purchased (normal here in Norway for open-box/returns to be repackaged as new, resold at retail prices), and struggled with a lot of the ram slots, and a lot of small things. Only 4 out of 8 ram slots worked really....
But pretty stable from around august last year til yesterday..when..of course little sleep..just HAD to try and flash the stupid m1115, as my pseudo raid-array windows storage system (refs, mirror 1) is running out of space, and I'm completely out of sata ports on the mobo!

I frankly dunno...it started even before the flashing nightmare with problems with the reset...wouldn't reset from pc to mobo header. Then the mobo led error thing would go blank for long periods of time before showing anything. Frankly, suspect corrupt bios chip (not surprising given how many times I've had to clear cmos, move things around, reseat memory etc!).

Ordered 2x bios chips from the Netherlands, as well as a bios chip extractor and bios chip flasher from ebay. Sent as well emails to my reseller and ASRock, we'll see if they reply or postpone until warranty runs out on july 18th (assuming 1 year warranty).

Christian at ASRock Rack in NL has been pretty good so far, hope he steps up to the plate again. But at this point not hopeful..looks like euro 500+shipping+25% VAT/GST/Sales tax or around 900 usd buckaroos for a new board ...not exactly a happy camper.

Frankly pretty worried here, as had 8x4tb nas hdd's on that board, using windows refs storage spaces in mirror 1. I THINK I backed up most of it to the cloud, but can't be 100% sure...and no backup server (is in the works, but not there yet missing mobo! server will get the 3rd e5-2696 v3 and steal some ram from current workstation). Regardless, downloading 39TB on my still pretty good 250 Mbps down connection is going to take..uhhmm...15 days non-stop downloading! (thank god I moved from Australia!). Still not good, not good at all!

Wow that backup server can't come soon enough! All is there apart from a cheap x99 mobo at this point..and of course $$$ of hdd's (phew need to win lottery!). Just need to figure out whether freenas, or zfx system , freebsd etc, and then some virtualization of windows for render slave...but long way out yet. Ditto comms for backup (looking at fiber spf+ 10g to workstation as longer than 15m)..so yet another project. But that's for another post.

At the moment, have sort of 321 backup system working (3 or 4 copies of pics, vids that are irreplaceable, 2 or 3 here, then online, and low res versions on google photos of course), but for a lot of other stuff..just 2 copies..not cool.

Ok long post srry for that, thanks for replies..the computing nightmare continues..still no post...hope you never have to go there (but you will!)....:)
 
Last edited:
Stefan75

Stefan75

Member
Jan 22, 2018
96
10
8
48
Switzerland
Did you try to access using the dedicated IPMI LAN port/ip yet?
You might be able to recover/reflash the board from there.
 
S

squidman

Member
Jul 8, 2017
92
4
8
53
Hi Stefan..funny thing my mobile registered reply before laptop! Yes I did, and both ethernet and ipmi sort of work (as well as the mobo heartbeat and other led's), had to kind of figure that out as never used ipmi. BUUT of course I had not set up ipmi ip addresses on the mobo (didn't see a use for it, was my under desk main workstation), so although ping showed good, was not able to connect. IPMI showed orange. Tried factory default ip addresses, still no dice. However, given mobo won't even start post, don't think that was ever going to work. So at this point, it looks like the new bios chips have to work, or RMA and it's a bad batch..or I completely f!ed the board somehow (checked standoffs and all! seemed good!)..
At this point..note...it won't post at all. Yes it registers heartbeat, but led debug console is dead, and won't even go into post...if it could POST, well would be half-way there...but no post...weeelll...

Thanks for reply!

And YES! will definately have a bios chip flasher on hand and xtra bios chips on hand everytime from now on! Regardless! On the way of course, but strongly recommend to every diy system builder! Sigh just have to wait..patiently.....for them to arrive...sigh..
 
S

squidman

Member
Jul 8, 2017
92
4
8
53
Just a shout-out to forum members there..without this forum (and others like it, overclock.net, the anandtech forum, etc) we would be so screwed! Many thanks all!
 
S

squidman

Member
Jul 8, 2017
92
4
8
53
update...used ebay bios chip flasher which showed a blank bios chip. Was able to reflash the .40 bios rom and voila!!! All is working. Looks like the last package i used to flash the lsi board had some .ini files or something which erased the mobo bios!

Those ebay bios chip flashers are a godsend! Just as well that came..3x bios chips and bios extractor gone missing in the mail..lot of druggies in my hood ...
So back to square 1...still need to flash to it mode. Will order a 2nd m1115 or m1015 to try it out on. Out of sata ports for storage spaces mirror. Hopefully dont brick mobo bios 2nd time around..

Here's the link to the German youtuber whose vid saved my bacon..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom